Advertising My Stutter?

I've recently had an email exchange with a blogger friend who emailed me an article about "coming out" as a stutterer. The conversation was borne from a comment left on my last post "Mean People" and it really struck me as a useful idea. If I am in a stressful situation, like ordering food at a restaurant or calling a business on the telephone...simply letting the other person know that I stutter will take off the edge and will make me less judgmental of myself and more free to simply communicate, knowing that the "cat is out of the bag" so to speak. I like that idea. And I will use it.


Having said, that, I will still continue to use my tricks to avoid blocks and to avoid stuttering. The link that was emailed to me suggests that this is the wrong approach. To wit:


Advertising Stuttering Article



"...some of the most unhappy and bitter stutterers I know are moderate to mild stutterers who believe that they can hide their disfluency. They add a great deal of stress to their lives and put even greater strain on their speech. No one is fooled; not their listener, and not themselves. As a result, every misstep is seen as a risk of exposure and fills the speaker with dread at being found out. They must focus all their energies on continuing the deception and the inevitable mistake is seen as a failure which reinforces their fear of stuttering. Brick by brick, bar by bar, syllable by syllable, they construct their own prison until they permit stuttering to take control of their lives..."


Although there is much truth to what is written above, I will still use my tricks to obtain the appearance of fluency. Why? Because it makes me feel better about my communications and it makes me, ultimately, feel better about myself. A mental health professional would probably tell me that I should work to instead feel better about my "true" self, that is, as a stutterer. But, again, I disagree. My true self is who I am as a person...and stuttering is just one aspect of who I am. It's not my sole identity and it's not something that I use to identify myself, if that makes sense. My identity revolves mostly around my values...not my physical or physiological characteristics. They might tell me that I should be "okay" with having a stutter. I understand that, but it's not so simple. I can accept the fact that I stutter...admit it...not deny it...but I can also work every day to avoid doing it, just as a cripple might try to avoid falling down if he struggles with walking. I just don't embrace this notion of NOT trying to hide the fact that I stutter. Should a cripple NOT try to walk? 


In my professional life and my personal life, I feel good about myself. I don't have an inferiority complex nor do I suffer from low self esteem. My stutter annoys me...that's the primary emotion that stuttering heaps upon me. It doesn't make me feel inferior or less than others or less valuable than others. It annoys me probably much the same way a leg that is 3 inches shorter than the other would annoy me. And if I had that affliction, I would do whatever I could to make both legs appear the same length and I would work hard to participate in activities that others without the affliction participate in and I would make every attempt to look just like they do when I participate.


Do you think my assessment is wrong? Should I stop trying to avoid stuttering by using tricks? If so, please explain why....while addressing what I've already said about why I do it. And, thank you for reading.